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I’m not entirely sure how Warlocks will turn out, but for the moment I’d say it’s cast a spell on me. A war spell. Now I wish there were such a thing as a war spelling bee, but that’s a discussion for another day. Warlocks is a sidescrolling local-multiplayer-friendly magi-fighter done up in satisfyingly meaty – perhaps even girthy – pixelated style. Developer Spiffy Goats – evidently far better at naming themselves than their games – is aiming for a sweet spot between spell slinging strategy and outright chaos, and I think they might just be onto something. Plus, brilliant roguelike-like Risk of Rain is apparently a big influence in the single-player and co-op departments. Trailer and details below.

Fire blasts! Split-second teleport dodges! Giant lumbering summon blobs! It looks solid, like some weird midpoint between Magicka: Wizard Wars and Samurai Gunn or Towerfall. It’s also pretty heavily inspired by one of my favorite roguelike-likes of recent times, Risk of Rain, something you can experience for yourself by playing its game-jam-born predecessor Risk of Death.

Here’s a description from the spiffiest of goats:

“Warlocks lets you join the grandest of all tournaments, a tournament to determine the most powerful warlock from all the dimensions. The plot’s generic and that’s how we want it to be, everything in the game will be both extreme and mockingly over the top.”

“[In addition to] online co-op mode and local versus 2-4 player mode, the game will feature single player story mode (with an option for your friends to join in online co-op and aid you), where you will be unlocking new playable characters, beating badass bosses and traveling through multiple worlds. Throughout all those worlds you’ll be leveling your character up and collecting sweet procedurally-generated items to destroy those silly monsters with even more efficiency.”

So it’s a pretty standard feature set, albeit with a slightly more ambitious single-player mode than most games of this sort get. Mainly though, I’m intrigued by all the high-flying abra-ka-biffing, a dish that looks especially sweet when served up with multiplayer sauce.

Warlocks is on Steam Greenlight right now, and it’s set to release later this year. Who among you is prepared for both war and locks? Who, I ask you?

7 Comments

Recent trends for indie games to be local multiplayer only (or in this case 1/3 of the ways to play the game) are really starting to piss me off. Can we have a cool pixel art platformer with tight combat controls that is online with all of its modes for gods sake? Nidhogg manages it so don’t tell me online latency would ruin the game. It’s 2014, not dial-up! Not everyone has a local group of gamers to play with.

Yeah, sorry, but I highly disagree both with you and that opinion piece. I shouldn’t want online mode? What, because its hard to design a game the way it needs to be designed in order to accomodate that? Sorry, but if any group of devs wants my money, they’ll have to be willing to put that much effort into their game. An online option is a must for any and all multiplayer games on PC nowadays.

Other than the title and a few paragraphs, the linked article is not an opinion piece. The bulk of the article is explaining why online modes don’t work for some games. It covers why compensations that work for some games are not practical for other types of games.

Dismissing the article as an opinion that you don’t agree with is like saying that the warning label on a pack of cigarettes is an opinion that you don’t agree with.

And back to Nidhogg, apparently it just barely manages online mode: link to steamcommunity.com.
Catering to everyone’s needs doesn’t really seem possible, but those outraged people don’t have any experience with game development, I think.

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My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My neighbour’s sister has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can’t believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
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